I Won't Let Go
by Leonie Kenobi
Summary: The same fiercely protective instinct that causes a mother to shield her child from any harm without considering the consequences for herself caused Gibbs to jump in front of Tony because there wasn't time to pull him down . In the split second before the bullet hit him his only thought was "He's safe. My son will live..." Tony/Gibbs father/son with Gibbs saving Tony for a change
1. Chapter 1

**I WON'T LET GO**

**Hey guys! First of all, this is my first story, so please be kind. I really appreciate polite, constructive criticism though. I was kind of bored with the heap of (wonderful) Tony-saves-Gibbs-and-gets-hurt-stories around here, so I decided to write it the other way round. This was also inspired by the lovely video "NCIS – Tony and Gibbs - I won't let go" on YouTube which made me cry. Enjoy!**

**Chapter 1**

"Ziva, take McGee and go in through the back door. Tony, you're with me."

This had become second nature to Tony: the procedure was always pretty much the same when they entered a suspect's house or hideout. They split up like they had done many times before, went in, saw the suspect pointing a gun at them, shouted their standard "NCIS! Drop your weapon!" and waited.

Everything would have continued to go as usual (they would have shot the suspect in defence), if it hadn't been for the whisper, the whisper so low only Tony could hear it, the whisper of a small child that didn't have the energy for more than that whisper: "Help!"

Because of that whisper, Tony was distracted for the fraction of a second and didn't see the bullet that came flying out of the suspect's gun straight at his head. When he noticed, the time to duck had passed. The only thing he could do was close his eyes and wait for it all to end.

Only it didn't.

Gibbs didn't hear the child. The only thing he noticed was the bullet flying his Senior Field Agent and the only thing he thought was "No. Not him..."

When he acted, it was more out of instinct than out of a conscious decision. The same fiercely protective instinct that causes a mother to shield her child from any harm without considering the consequences for herself caused Gibbs to jump in front of Tony because there wasn't time to pull him down and because there wasn't anything to take cover behind near them. In the split second before the bullet hit him his only thought was "He's safe. My son will live..."

The next thing Tony knew was that Gibbs was down. This wasn't right, it shouldn't be him lying on the ground, it should be Tony himself...

Gibbs' shirt was reddening fast and Tony heard himself shouting at the man who was like a father to him as though some other person was shouting it: "NO! Stay awake, Boss! Stay awake! Don't do this to me. Boss! Don't..." The voice that seemed to belong to somebody else faded as Gibbs struggled to say something. Tony leaned down to be able to hear him better while at the same time he was pressing down heard on the other agent's wound, determined that these words would not be Gibbs' last although they sounded terribly like it:

"Try not to grieve too much, Tony. I will die in peace. I love you, my son..."

"Boss! Don't say that! You have to stay awake! Don't pass out!Don't do this to me, Boss..Boss? You listening?"

He wasn't. Gibbs was slowly closing his eyes, a smile on his face as his vision went black. He could hear Shannon and Kelly calling...

**To continue or not to continue, that is the question the answer of which depends entirely on you...so please please please review**

**Love, Leonie Kenobi**


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

**Hey guys, I'm really sorry that I can't respond to your reviews as I normally would have done, but I'm on holiday in Italy with my parents which means that I get like, 1 minute of Internet per week which I'm using now to post this chapter. I am also sorry for all the medical things in this chapter as I can neither read other stories and copy their bullet wound descriptions nor do some research on Wikipedia. By the way, I highly recommend watching the video I named this fic for on YouTube first ("NCIS – Gibbs and Tony – I Won't Let Go" or something similar), it kind of gets you in the right mood to read this. My first fic is still unbetaed, so it's "volunteers, step forward, please!" ;). Enjoy!**

When Gibbs woke up, he had no idea where he was and neither did he care. All he saw and wanted to see were Shannon and Kelly standing about 50 metres away from him. Without a thought, he began to run towards them, only to find that they were not coming any closer. Then why the hell were they both smiling at him? Why didn't they come to him if he couldn't come to them? Then Kelly opened her mouth:

"You can't come with us, Daddy. It's not time yet."

"Why? I have waited all these years and every time, I only came back because Tony needed me. Sometimes I had to come back because I needed to save his life, and the times when he was safe, I always knew he wasn't ready yet. But he's ready now; I can come with you." Gibbs replied.

"No you can't, Jethro. He may be ready as an agent for his mentor to die, but he's not ready as a son for his father to die."

"But he has to. He knows it's a dangerous job we do, that I could die any day. I'd rather die protecting Tony than any other way. "

"But you shouldn't think that Jethro, don't you see? Tony will eat himself up with guilt if you die for him. You haven't convinced him that he's worth protecting yet. You may have told him that you love him, but he doesn't think he deserves it. Right at this moment, your body is laying in an ambulance on the way to the hospital and he's there too, crying, shouting at you that he wasn't worth it, that he would have died for you anytime and that he needs you to come back."

"Well maybe he does. But what about you?"

"We'll be okay, Daddy. We have waited this long for you; we can wait twenty or thirty years longer. We just want you to be happy, and trust me, you will never be happy here if you stay now. People in heaven can see everything that happens on earth, you know. We've been watching over you the whole time, and if you stay here, you'd watch Tony wasting away with grief and you would know that there was nothing you could do about it."

"Only die when it's inevitable, Jethro. You may not value your own life highly enough, but your son certainly does. Now go back there and give him a hug from us."

"We love you, Daddy. Take care of Tony."

"I will. I love you, too. I love you both."

With these words, he turned and walked back into the dark tunnel which he hadn't seen before, although it must have been there the whole time. He was as happy as he hadn't been in a long time. He had seen his girls and they had given him a task, another chance of happiness, the chance of a happy life for another twenty or thirty years without having to worry if Shannon and Kelly missed him, but instead knowing they wanted him to do the thing he would have done if it hadn't been for them waiting for him. They had given him the chance of a life with his son.

As Gibbs' eyes closed, Tony's world fell apart. He could faintly hear the sirens of an approaching ambulance which Ziva or McGee must have called, then the sound of his fellow agents and another person (likely a doctor or a nurse) approaching. He had stopped shouting but he continued pressing hard on Gibbs' wound although it was not enough to stop the older man's shirt from rapidly turning red. He couldn't form a coherent thought because the scream had stopped coming out of his mouth, but it had continued inside his head, filling his whole mind with an incredibly loud "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" which only went into the background as an ambulance team approached him and urgently shoved him out of the way to work on Gibbs. While two of them heaved the agent on a stretcher, their team leader asked:

"Could you please contact his next of kin?"

"That's me." Ignoring Ziva's and McGee's gasps of surprise and his mind still in a haze of fear, Tony stepped forward.

"Okay, good. Will you ride with us, sir?"

Unsure, Tony looked to Ziva and McGee. He desperately wanted to ride with his Boss, but Gibbs would have told him that his duties as acting supervisory agent went first.

"It's okay, Tony." Ziva assured him. "Go on. We'll finish up here, and then we'll come to Bethesda. Take care of him and call us the minute anything happens."

"All right. Yes, I will be going with you."

If Tony had been calm enough think, he would surely have felt that this was the worst and the longest ride in his whole life. He could hear the meds talking. He couldn't make out what they were saying, nor would it have made any sense to him. The only thing he could do was to sit there and hold, no, crush Gibbs hand in his. He had never been this scared in his life. Then, the event he had feared for the whole time happened. His Boss' heart stopped. Although he had no knowledge of medicine whatsoever, even he could understand what it meant when the meds started to shout frantically, one of them crying out: "His heart stopped. Jones, CPR!"

A second time this day, Tony started to shout without consciously deciding to.

"NO! Don't do this to me, Boss! I'm not worth it! I'm really not! I'm supposed to save you, not the other way round. Don't die, Boss! Don't you die on me! I need you….Dad…come back, please come back to me."

Tony stopped. His throat was sure and he couldn't shout anymore. The medical team hadn't stopped him because they knew how important this could be to somebody on the verge of dying. You wouldn't think it, but unconscious people actually hear a lot.

Suddenly, Gibbs' heart started beating again, very faintly, but he was alive. Tony sighed with relief and slumped back down onto his seat.

When they arrived at Bethesda, the team immediately whisked Gibbs away on his stretcher towards the emergency surgery.

"Sir, as his next of kin you need to sign these papers enabling us to perform surgery on him as soon as possible."

Tony signed the papers without so much as a second glance.

"How long will it take?"

"There's no saying how long it will take. A few hours at least."

"What are the odds?"

"Well, the bullet went clean through his stomach. We don't know which, or if any, major organs were hit. If none were hit, it is likely that he'll live. But we don't know that yet, so I'd give him a 50% chance of survival. Come on, I'll show you where the surgery waiting room is. "

When he arrived in the waiting room, Ziva and McGee were already there. He quickly updated tehm on Gibbs' condition, then he called Ducky (the easier of the two phone calls) and Abby, who went into hysterics and promised to come immediately together with Ducky. Tony made her promise she would let the ME drive as she was in no state to drive herself and hung up.

He sat down next to Ziva and McGee and waited. And waited. And waited.

**That's it. I don't think I will be able to update as soon next time because I need the internet for the medical stuff in the next chapter and I already told you why that isn't possible, so I think the next chapter will be posted in about two weeks. As always, I really appreciate constructive criticism and reviews themselves even more, so do me a favor and press the little grey button!**

**Until next time, **

**Leonie Kenobi **


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

**Hey guys,**

**I've got some good and some bad news for you: the good news: I'm posting this chapter sooner than you thought, the bad news:it's quite short. Forgive me! So, same as always: I hope you like, I'm still searching for a beta, no, I won't kill Gibbs, yada yada yada**

**Enjoy!  
-**

Tony waited. And waited. And waited. He was only disturbed from his dark thoughts by the sound of McGee's and Ziva's footsteps which he would know anywhere. He didn't look up.

"The crime scene, McGee?"

"Finished, Tony. The evidence and the corpse are on their way to headquarters. I'll send you the pictures we made as soon as we know the boss is alright."

"Well done." Tony ignored the second comment. Right now, the last thing he wanted to think about was Gibbs' condition. Of course, it didn't work, but he still didn't want to talk about it more than necessary. Talking only made it worse. Ziva and Tim knew this, but they had to ask:

"How is he?"

"I don't know anything I didn't know half an hour ago on the phone."

"Okay", McGee responded. Tony shook his head. No, it wasn't. Didn't they see?

The SFA could hear Ziva and Tim talking very quietly to each other, but he couldn't make out what they were saying. Finally, McGee cleared his voice loudly and asked: "Anyone want some coffee?"

Tony shook his head and Tim disappeared in search of a coffee machine for him and Ziva, who sat next to the Italian.

"What is it, Tony? Gibbs has been injured many times, I have never seen you this worried about him."

"I know. But he was always a fighter. Every time, I was convinced that he would pull through because he said so. A low "bring me some coffee into the hospital, DiNozzo" and I'd know he would be alright. And this time…"

"What did he say? Did he say anything at all?"

"He did. He told me he loved me and that I shouldn't grieve too much."

Tony didn't say that Gibbs had called him his son. This was the most painful thing to say, the reason why he was sitting here in a hospital chair and Gibbs was lying in a bed in surgery, not the other way round.

"And…" No, he couldn't say it. He felt like his insides were being ripped out.

"What? Tony, you can tell me. It's okay."

Ziva hugged him, and as he was giving in to the hug, and everything else that had happened, he whispered quietly into her ear."

"It's my fault, Zee. If I had payed attention, he wouldn't be…here. I should have died, not him. Why? Why did he have to do that? Why couldn't he just let me die and…"

His voice broke.

"You know why. Because he loves you."

Tony didn't have the strength to respond to that. Still hugging each other, they both sat down again and waited. When McGee arrived, he didn't ask why both of their faces were wet, he just sat down and waited with them. So they waited, first for Ducky and Abby to arrive, then together with them for an update from a doctor.

"Family of Leroy Jethro Gibbs?"

They all stood up and held their breaths, both anticipating and fearing what would come now.

"Can you prove that all of you are his family? I'm sorry, but I'm only allowed to give information on Mr. Gibbs' –"

"Special Agent Gibbs!" Abby interrupted him.

"Er, uhm, right, Special Agent Gibbs' condition to his family and his next of kin."

Tony stepped forward and flashed his badge. "I'm his next of kin. Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo."

None of the team made a comment on why Tony hadn't presented himself as 'Very Special Agent'. He only was (don't think had been, don't think had been, Abigail!) special because of his very special boss and mentor who told him so.

The doctor checked in the papers he was holding in his hand. "Okay, would you please follow me, sir."

Slowly and not trusting his own feet, Tony followed the doctor into a small conference room.

"Okay, I've got some good news and some bad news." Not waiting for Tony to say that he wanted the good news first, he continued "The good news: Agent Gibbs is alive." Tony didn't sigh in relief, but held his breath for the bad news. "The bad news: He's not stable yet. I don't want to bother you with medical details, but the next 12 hours will be crucial. Right now, I'd give him a 75 % chance of survival. If he makes it through the night, he will live. He has been transferred from emergency surgery to the ICU. Agent Gibbs is allowed visitors, but only two at a time."

When Tony broke the news to the rest of the team who had been anxiously waiting outside, the response was a mixture of sighs of relief and sighs of sadness from the men and tears (if out of fear or of relief, Tony didn't know) from the women. Ducky was the first to talk.

"Anthony, you can stay with him. I will send the others in one by one."

"Okay, Ducky. Thanks."

With a final hug for Abby and Ziva, Tony left and went with the doctor who had been waiting for him to show him where the Gibbs' room in the ICU was.

**That's it. You would make me very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very okay I'll stop now very happy by leaving a review. Thank you for reading!**


End file.
